Windjammers @ The Worlds 2009 KC

[ioneca]

So far it's Kenny Lee, Dave Sterrett and Johnny Blue. Anybody else?

[ioneca]

GOOD LUCK FELLAS, I will be watching and posting about U.

[pterodactyl]

Raaaaaaayyyyyy! I was hoping we could caddy for each other in the final 9!

I'll be flying there while you guys are jossling for the golden anchor; that's if Josh remembers to bring it to The Fid.

[pterodactyl]

I heard that the player pack was pretty sweet. Can't wait to give it all away when I get back for ctp's and such.

Also, I'll be spending some of the DW's money on some stuff to give out at our weeklies when I return. I'll try to get some autographs on some good discs...Val, Nate, and/or whoever wins the Open divisions.

Until then....KL...out like Jim Rome...

[steelyone]

Good Luck to you guys. Go get some.

[Teemac]

It would be nice to read about your rounds during Worlds week, so if you guys read this and have time, put down some of your thoughts about how you're doing. Let us slobbos who couldn't make it to KC have a little taste of the Worlds back here as it happening.

[ioneca]

Kenny is in 5th after two rounds with a -2, 4 strokes behind the leader. Dave Sterrett is +6 tied for 35th, Johnny Blue is 53rd with a +12. Steve Ganz is leading them with a +5. I know there is lotsa golf left but come on guys!!!!

[ioneca]

Kenny is one stroke out of 4th. Keep it up and you'll make the final 9!! Dave and Johnny are in danger of not making the top 32. Come on Windjammers!!!

[pterodactyl]

Arrived in KC Sat. morning and went straight to Leavenworth to visit my cousin, Lt Colonel Lee, and check out Michael Vicks' old digs. Later that evening, Rob and I checked out Rosedale's front nine before it got dark. Ran into Johnny Blue and Dave Sterrett out there! Totally cool.
Sunday Rob and I practiced Swope and WyCo.
Monday we played Blue (monster) Valley. 11 thousand+ feet of hell. If you thought Hogan was a workout, it's only a warmup compared to BV. It was 92 degrees when we played it with a lot of uphill lies and shots that were optical illusions. Very difficult mentally and physically.
Now my arm is really sore and the tourney starts tomorrow...

more later...KL

[pterodactyl]

Swope: Playing with Bill Burns from Texas and a guy from wisconsin, Don Kunkel.

This course is very cool. It's shaped like a spoked wheel with just about every other hole coming uphill to the pro shop. Good desing concept, but the fairways are too close together.

It's raining...and the tee pads are too short for me. Too bad the areas behind each tee pad are muddy. I'm doing my best Jim Oates imitation on the pads with not much success. I'm losing distance from my practice round. Still, it's not windy. The chains were wet and greasy as I had 3 spit-outs; one on a sweet 60 foot jump putt. Three birdies and two bogies later I'm -1. My first bogey went over a cliff into the trees with no clear shot other than throwing at the bush as hard as I could. It bounced back to me and I had a clear 45 degree uphill angle shot for bogey which I pured. :) best putt of the day!
This course was easy and I should have put up a -6 easily. The rain wasn't steady, but it was muddy everywhere.
The am masters were all over the course before we could even finish. Very distracting. Where's the TD?

Now it's off to Water Works with my travelling buddy, Geoff Fiedler in our Chevy Wanabe.
We are driving into very dark clouds...

[pterodactyl]

Water Works: My favorite of the KC courses. It's been 10 years since I played it. Too bad it is going to rain the entire round. Very sloppy conditions so I tried to play par golf. That's about all I could muster out there. 15 pars and 2 bogeys going into the last hole. I can't remember the last time I didn't have at least one birdie in a round. Very humbling. So I park the last hole with my blue cobra. Good thing it was a hole less than 300 feet.
As it turns out, my 55 was a very good score in that weather and I didn't really lose any ground. I'm still in it! I didn't practice this course before the tourney and it really didn't matter. We won't be playing it again. Too bad I waited 10 years to play it and it rained all day. Very disappointing.
Tomorrow my tee time is at 10:10 at Blue (monster) Valley, an 11,000 foot track of major hill climbing and giant holes. It's like18 holes like hole 17 at The Fid only some of the holes are uphill. Major league tough with very few flat landing areas. More later...

[Teemac]

Good stuff Kenny. Look forward to Day 2

[pterodactyl]

I call it the Blue Monster. This course is huge. Only one hole less than 300 feet and I didn't birdie it.The only thing I was worried about was getting my first drive in the fairway. Left or right and you are losing strokes to the field. I got one down the middle and I was on my way. 2 throws later and I had a 50 foot downhiller for par...well, I didn't make any putts from 50 or more for the entire tourney so there you go.
At least it's not hot out here today like it was on my practice round.
I played the course decently but didn't score very well. Lots of holes were like an old cliche' (lets put it on a sidehill). Very difficult to go for putts without severe risk/reward. One of my best holes was 13. It's an 850 foot downhiller. I was behind the basket looking up at a 30 footer for bird when a giant locust/cicada landed on my leg. It looked like it came out of the stone age and I screamed like a school girl as it freaked me out. Pretty sure I lost my focus for a few seconds as my putt hit the tray and rolled past me. I then canned the uphill 40 footer for par.
There were a lot of optical illusion shots out there due to pins behind hills and such and my upshot game was terrible. I kept leaving lots of work to do out there and generally didn't do a good job. I shot a 68 and lost ground to the top guys. Even though this course was tough as nails, the range in scores only went from 63-71.
Did I mention my arm is still sore from practicing? Off to ice it down, lick my wounds, and get me some KC Bar-B-Q.
A 5 hour round and I don't want to see a disc until tomorrrow.

[Teemac]

Dude - where's Day 3? Don't stop now! Take us back to Kansas City.

[pterodactyl]

It's off to the FlyMart.
Downtown KC is pretty sweet at night. Lots of fountains lit up, nice architecture, the war memorial tower looks like it has flames coming out of the top of it, and an awesome lightning bolt show.
The fly mart was too crowded so I left after getting my free roc. Before that, I talked to Joe "Twisted Flyer" Rotan. He gave me a new TF shirt and visor. Also talked to Brian Cummings. He's the TD for next year's worlds at Lemon Lake, IN. I will be there. All of the courses are in one spot.
When Rob and I left the hotel, the sky cut loose with a fury only seen in biblical times. All night it thundered and rained and was raining when my alarm went off. Rosedale was soaked to the bone, but lucky for us golfers, the rain stopped.

[ioneca]

Very cool!

[pterodactyl]

Rosedale is a lefty's dream. Hole 1: L, Hole 2: L, 3: Straight, 4:L, 5:S, 6:S, 7:S, 8:L, 9:S, 10:L, 11:S, 12:S, 13:S, 14: WoW! a righty hyzer!!!, 15:L, 16: S, 17: S, 18:L. Almost all of the holes have OB next to major cliffs and trees. A rope tow would be needed to get back up to the course if you go down there in the mud. Luckily, I didn't have any rollers today. I played fairly normal today shooting a +1 and an even and popped back into 5th place where I seem to be floating with Eric Van. We've played the last 3 rounds together. His wife is going to leave him since he's spending so much time with me. J/K Elaine.

My feet are soaked, but my spirit is not drenched. I played boring golf, but I'm still in good shape on the 2nd card. A lot of the longer holes are tweeners out there: throw hard drives and mid-range approaches and 3's are easy out there. 2's are difficult on all but about 3 holes.

Oklahoma Joe's is just down the street. It is the most awesome old-school b-b-q place in KC. It's located in a gas station, but don't let that stop you. I ordered a full rack dinner and suprised my brother with it when I got back to the Value Place. Onion rings, fries, and some awesome sauces and I'm stuffed and sleeping well.

Tomorrow I play WyCo. Eric's in my group again.

[pterodactyl]

This is a beautiful, grassy park. There's nobody out there and you could easily fit 5 or six more disc golf courses out there. There are 3 really easy par 3's and everything else is semi-easy to get to in two shots if you throw a well place drive.
There seems to be a lot of tension in the air before this round because only the top 16 are going to be making the semis tomorrow.
I bogeyed my 2nd hole after my roller hit an early tree, but played pretty solid after that. I birdied 2 of the 3 easy holes, missing a 20 foot uphiller for my one miss.
The 13th hole is a 666 foot dogleg right with OB on both sides of the fairway for the entire hole marked with flags. I chickened out going for it in two and just missed a jump putt for a 3 from about 50 feet.
It's a nice course and all, but very boring. And I had to ration my one bottle of water because the only water jug was by tournament central where I started my round.
I played well enough to keep my 5th place spot, but Eric played a flawless round and moved to the lead card for the semis.
When the rest of the dust settled, Billy Lane and Merle W. were left one shot out of the semis. Jay Gobrect, who injured his hammy on the 2nd day, limped around to make the semis on one leg. Waytogo Jay, you are my hero.
Doug Werner, Geoff Fiedler and I made the cut.
Tomorrow we have to play Rosedale again for the 3rd time...

After the round was over, we had a beer with Mark Ellis then went to the Wolf Lodge. The lodge is a theme park for families based on outdoor activities. Pretty cool.
From there we ventured over to Cabellas. They didn't have the seal skin socks I was looking for, but they had one excellent aquarium.
We drove by the NASCAR speedway on the way back to the hotel. I'm not tailgating, I'm drafting!!

[JohnLambert]

OK, I'm hooked. Nice journal on Worlds. I'm picturing everything. Waiting for more now!

[pterodactyl]

Who needs an alarm. Thunder works extremely well for a wake-up call. No worries though, my brother is going to caddy for me. By start time the rain has subsided. I'm playing with Snapper Pierson, last year's champ, Greg Hosfeld, and Randy Beers. I'm 2 strokes out of the final 4.
We start on hole 13 and all par it. Same for 14. 15 is the easiest hole on the course for a back hand right hander. Only bird was by Beers. I semi-park the 16th, but am behind a big tree trunk and hit nothing with my straddle putt. It was a major death putt with nothing but steep ravine behind it. I think I chickened out on the put. Think?
I par it and the next and am the only 3 on 17. I'm playing well and starting to think about the final 4 a little bit.
On hole 18 I throw a sweet, long turnover that won't stop turning over until it hits the edge of the schule. I can't find it! I'm put on the clock and with 16 seconds left and after some feverish scuttling by myself, I find it. I'm knee deep in poison ivy, get down into it, and throw one of those shots where you start to fall into the open before you throw. I drill a cobra right at the basket, but too strong. It was slightly downhill and went 40 by. I missed the putt coming back and everyone else gets a 3. A quick reversal of the last hole.
Hole 1 is 500+ down in the muck. Hos and I 3 it with good approaches and putts. Hole 2 is basically the same hole only shorter with a hill to throw over before descending down into the muck. Hos and I 3 it. My favorite hole in KC is next. It's a straight shot down a penninsula of rock and trees. My drive was decent, but I clanked my 33 footer up hill. Hos birdies it.
Hole 4: 4
Hole 5: 3
Hole 6: 2
Hey, I'm getting better, but Hosfeld is hot too.
Hole 7 has OB in the middle portion of the hole and also has an island.
I missed the island short. compleletly stupid shot and take a 5 while Hos gets a 3.
Hole 8 is pretty tough. 400+. I birdied it once when I went for a death putt. Not this time. 3 was ok for me. Hos 2'd it. He's on a roll.
Hole 9 is very easy downhiller. I threw short and was still throwing downhill at it. My meager attempt at least stayed close for a par.
2 holes left. #11 cost me big-time in the 1999 Am Worlds. I parred it all 3 times this year.
Hole 13 is pretty easy, but my putt from the ditch went begging and I ended up with a bogus.
Hosfeld makes the semis, Fiedler beat me by 7 to take 6th and I end up 7th. Fiedler's round was awesome. He made another $500 with that round!! Great finish. Hos makes the final 4.

So as it turns out, Rosedale took me down. I bogeyed 18, 4, and 12 all 3 rounds. That's +9 on 3 holes on one course. Take those away and some of the other poor judgements that I made on some layups and I'm right there...shoulda, woulda, coulda.com

Went over to Oklahoma Joes, but the line went out the door...bummer!
Off to the finals..........to watch(sniff).

[ioneca]

Totally enjoyed the play by play Kenny!!